Start Over Is No Way To Begin
by synniemini
Summary: When Elsa's life starts to crumble, she finds herself on a mountain top, scared out of her mind. No wonder it was Pitch Black who found her. After all, Elsa might just be his key to the power he had always wanted - and how could he resist this beautiful, sweet fear she kept in her heart?


_Since this is my first fanfiction and I'm not a native English speaker, please be gentle with me. I am very thankful for any kind of constructive criticism though._

_The title of the story - Start Over Is No Way To Begin - is part of the song 'Out Of Reach' by The Get Up Kids. If you haven't heard of them, you should go check them out. _

_I do not own any of the characters, the settings or the song used in the title. They are property of Dreamworks, Disney and The Get Up Kids._

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><p>She found herself looking at the bright, full moon, hovering mighty up in the dark night sky – even if it reminded her of the last person she wanted to be thinking about.<p>

Jack Frost had ruined her evening, her coronation, possibly her whole life. Elsa was almost sure he didn't even know what he had done.

It was easy to blame it all on him. After all, he had started all this drama.

Jack Frost was Elsa's little sister Anna's best friend. They had grown very close some time ago and the boy with the white hair had spend almost all his time at their castle ever since. Elsa had never been severely bothered by the boy's presence – mainly because she hid in her room anyway, even when he wasn't around. Her sister Anna had been suffering because of that, Elsa knew it. Yet still, she didn't have the courage to come out of her room for more than to get an occasional snack from the kitchen. They had reached a point when they never even talked with each other anymore. In a way, Elsa had always been thankful for Jack Frost. He'd kept her sister away from her.

Elsa couldn't deny that the strange boy who hung around their castle a lot fascinated her, in a strictly platonic, distant way. Not that she actually talked to him. But in a way, the Princess had always had the feeling that the two were more similar than anyone – especially Anna – would ever have imagined. It wasn't simply that they looked freakishly alike (which admittedly scared her sometimes), Jack Frost also shared some of her powers, the powers that had made her stay away from Anna for years over years.

These powers had hurt her sister once, and Elsa hadn't given them the chance to do it again.

Anna had almost died back then. Elsa hadn't been able to look into her sister's eyes anymore after the incident, too much fear stayed in her heart even when Anna was healthy again. As a way of making it easy for her parents and the world, she started the solitary life in her room which she would keep up until the terrible day the message of their parent's death reached the two princesses. A storm had made the seas too rough and the royal flagship, on which the parents had been travelling, had sunk like a brick, taking down everything in its reach.

That was not even a year ago.

Standing ankle deep in the freshly fallen snow, looking at the moon, Elsa felt the same fear creeping up on her that she had felt for the first time that long time back, when Anna and herself had still been children and he accident had happened.

It didn't feel right that she should have been made queen this evening – but it felt even worse to know how everything had gone terribly wrong.

The girl with the white hair had been able to hide her powers throughout all of her adolescence. Now, at age 18, the world all the sudden knew everything. And if she was honest with herself – which she usually wasn't – she had no idea how to cope with all of that.

It was all Jack Frost's fault – at least that was what she liked to believe.

She still wondered what the hell had given him the idea that it was okay to make a move on her. In all those years, their most valid conversation had been about what kind of sandwiches they liked best. After he almost started a fight because he couldn't believe how she could possibly prefer peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, she had fled back to her room and pretty much avoided him ever since.

He didn't even know her. What on earth made him think otherwise? Had she led him on? She couldn't see how. It didn't make sense.

Elsa found herself staring at the moon accusingly, as if it could give her the answers to her many questions. But just like Jack Frost had told her once, when they had still been talking (if one can call it that, it was barely an exchange of few formalities, the kind of conversation you have because it's polite), the moon stayed silent.

Jack Frost had kissed her ten minutes before the start of her coronation. She had assumed he wanted to wish her good luck or something of the sort when he walked up to her, this stupid grin of his beaming broadly on his face. Elsa hadn't been prepared for the kiss. She couldn't imagine anybody being prepared for something like that. For a moment, she had been really close to slapping him. She knew Jack did stupid things from time to time. He just never took the things seriously enough – which was one reason she could never ever date him.

This had just been in a completely different league. He must have totally out-stupided himself with that action.

It had been good for him that he took off right after the kiss, winking boyishly at Elsa, and took his seat next to Anna, who didn't seem to have seen the kiss.

The Queen-to-be stood at the side of the hall, completely frozen. Small beads of sweat formed on her forehead, small enough not to be seen but big enough to be felt. A strange feeling, almost like a sort of panic, spread through Elsa's chest. She knew her voice had just now left her. What the hell had just happened? He had no right to do that. She didn't love him – how could she, they had only seen each other a couple times, in the castle's kitchen or in the hallway, and they'd never spoken for more than ten minutes. Where did this come from?

Elsa wondered how the boy could be so selfish. Didn't he know how something like this would totally throw her off course? She really didn't have the nerve to deal with such a thing right now, not at the moment of her coronation.

The princess had been doing so great up to that point. For somebody who had been hiding from people her whole life, she was pretty damn good at this Smalltalk-thingy. The people seemed to like her, and she thought that maybe, just maybe, she could actually be good at this whole "I-am-the-Queen-now"-business. For the first time in forever, she had even talked to Anna for a bit. It had been extremely awkward.

Jack Frost had managed to shatter all that she'd worked so hard to keep up that evening with an action of four freaking seconds. When she walked up to receive her crown, all those thoughts that told her she'd make a terrible queen returned. When she felt the fear rise up in her until it got stuck in her throat in the form of one big lump, the chance to turn around and flee had already passed her by. Her hand shook wildly as she took the sceptre in her right hand. All the heat seemed to leave her fingers and they went cold as icicles. Then the frost spread from her fingertips, covering slowly but surely the whole sceptre in her trembling hand. When she saw what was happening, the newly crowned Elsa dropped the probably insanely expensive ruling stick. When it hit the ground with loud 'clunck', all the colour left Elsa's face until it looked very similar to her hair.

For five terrible seconds, the Queen could witness how the ice that had stuck to the sceptre now spread over the flood. When the spreading finally stopped, the frozen bits on the ground stayed in a strange formation of frost-works. In any other situation, it would have been beautiful.

But this was not a normal situation. It was Queen Elsa's coronation. And she really didn't know how to work with what just happened.

For some moments, nobody moved. A shocked silence had fallen over the guests in the nice, big hall. Sometimes, Elsa wondered how they not all already knew. After all, she was eighteen years old and had almost white hair. That couldn't be normal, right?

Looking at the faces around her, one thing was very clear: They had all been clueless. She probably had to worry about the IQ of the people of her kingdom – but if she considered the circumstances, she had more pressing matters at hand.

The man who had donned the crown on her head looked at her with a mix of disgust and fear. Elsa was sure she must look even more terrified. She couldn't believe it had happened, the thing she'd been trying to avoid basically all her life. Judging from the stares she got, it had been the right thing to do.

Elsa was in such a state of shock; she didn't even hear the steps that slowly advanced her. If she had, she would have spun around and have had the chance to be prepared. When a hand touched her shoulder softly, she turned her head, having her white braid fly over her shoulder. She almost expected to see Anna there.

Instead, she looked into the blue eyes of Jack Frost.

"Elsa, Elsa listen to me", he said in a tone that should probably be soothing but achieved the opposite, "It's okay." A supporting smile appeared on his face. "Everything's going to be okay, Elsa. Powers are cool. Just look at me." And look at him she did. She saw a boy who tried to work with something that was way over his head. After all, it was way over hers as well, and she had been the responsible one all her life.

With a rough motion, she jerked free from the touch of his fingers. At this point, Elsa was nothing more than a body controlled by fear. Even through her shoes, ice reached the floor. The next moment, she found herself running. She was surprised that she had the strength to even push open the big doors of the palace's hall.

Without thinking, and maybe in the hope to drown herself, she jumped over the balustrade that separated her from the sea, as soon as she reached it. In the seconds her feet leapt and carried her towards the sea, she forgot her fear. When she was falling, it came back in even bigger intensity. Instead of salty water, her feet hit ice. She felt like Jesus, walking over water. The fluid changed its state the very second Elsa's foot touched it.

Anna's voice called after her, but Elsa wouldn't allow herself to stop. The hateful looks she'd just experienced were still too fresh in her mind. She just wanted to be gone from this place.

"Man in the Moon?" Elsa's voice trembled, and that not because of the cold, which had never bothered her anyway. She sighed, a cloud forming in front of her mouth. Her head hurt and she wished for nothing more than a good PB&J-Sandwich. "Man in the Moon", she repeated again, but her voice failed her. It also wasn't like she had any idea what to tell that mysterious guy up in the sky.

Thinking didn't really work so well for her at that point Everything was a blur. All she knew was how lonely she felt, how utterly lost and confused. Her heart beat far too fast and her hands still hadn't stopped shaking. Catching her breath, a wave of thoughts ran over her. Pictures of her home pinned themselves right to her inner eye and a sob escaped her lips.

"Well, well. Who do we have here? I thought I heard the sound of complete and utter desperation."

Elsa spun around to face the deep voice that had spoken from behind her back. But when she turned, there was nobody to be seen. There was only darkness.

"There's just nothing like sweet fear on a nice night like this, don't you agree?" the voice spoke again, this time from the other direction. Elsa froze in mid-motion, just when she was turning to face her invisible companion. The situation made her feel even more uneasy than she'd already felt before.

"Who are you?" Arendelle's queen asked, facing the shadows the tall trees around her cast. She gave her best to look stern, as if in any way she could overwrite how her voice was shaking. Of course it gave away her fear – it always had, and it probably always would.

From again another shadow around her, a laugh reached Elsa's ears. "You're asking who I am?" the voice said, obviously smiling. "I thought you would know."

In the direction Elsa was facing, the shadows started to stir. A man, all in black, with ashy-grey skin and golden, shiny eyes appeared in her field of vision. A sly smile played on his lips as he laid his piercing glance upon her.

Elsa shrank a little further still, as if to hide in the glittering white snow to her feet. That she had made it snow like it had still seemed crazy to her – but since crazy just seemed to be the new normal, she wondered why she was even still surprised. Strange things were happening all the time. She had powers over ice, for heaven's sake.

As a last attempt to safe the shreds that were left of her dignity, he lifted her chin and forced a tiny smile on her lips. Whoever this man was, he shouldn't think she's be easy prey (even though she probably was, considering she hadn't eaten anything since this morning, her stomach was yelling at her to get some food, and her head felt like some sort of knightly tournament was just happening inside of it).

The man only smiled at her weak attempts. "It's useless. I can still smell your fear, Snowflake." Elsa wanted to reply something just as witty as his words, but the only thing that crossed her mind was to call him _Mr Gloomy Dark Man_, which didn't sound good, not even in her head. As the logical consequence, she just stared at him, biting her lower lip. She must've looked so ridiculous.

The shadowman took another step towards her. His eyes spoke the language of pure cynicism. The smile had minimized, it was only very faint now. Instead his lip was just lightly curled. Elsa got the feeling he wasn't a fun guest at parties either.

"I thought Jack Frost would at least have mentioned me once or twice. As often as he hangs around you and this sister of yours, it would only have been fair if he remembered me once in a while." It seemed a bit ironic to Elsa how the man could expect Jack to talk of him, when his own voice was packed with disdain when saying the boy's name.

Still not understanding, the girl with the white hair arched her eyebrow. The man rolled his eyes.

"A slow one, are we? My name is Pitch Black, Lord of the Shadows, Master of Fear. I am the Bogeyman."

Elsa looked at him, eyes wide, unbelieving.

"Wait, you exist? I thought you were nothing but a tale to scare little kids."

Pitch's face immediately turned a darker shade of grey. His eyebrows narrowed until they were one connected line. The corner of his mouth twitched disapprovingly.

"Come on now. This joke is getting _so_ old. Did the Guardians put you up to this? Oh, I know they put you up to this. One day…" His voice trailed off. Elsa felt bad for asking, she hadn't meant to infuriate him, while in a way it made her smile on the inside to have hit his weak spot. He shouldn't think again she was this scared little girl. After all, she was Elsa, Queen to Arendelle, and now possibly Queen of the Snowy Lands-

Pitch's dark stare let her forget what she was thinking. His amber eyes made her feel small and unimportant again, like she never had actually gained any power over him. "Sorry", was the only thing she could mutter. Lucky for her, his expression softened a little. He shrugged and straightened his shoulders. Around him, dark shadows were dancing. Elsa would lie if she even thought she wasn't intimidated, because she was. Truth be told, her heart was beating so fast, she could've sworn she was close to a heart attack.

"What do you want from me?" the girl said with as much self-confidence in her voice as she could manage. Even if she couldn't impress Pitch with it, it was important to her. Almost all she had known had been taken from her, and all that was left seemed to be fleeing her – her determination, her tiny bit of courage and the rest of her dignity. She didn't know what Pitch did to her, but she knew she was getting more feeble with every passing second.

The Bogeyman made one big step and sunk into the snow, which also kept falling continuously, up to his knee. He shot a probably poisonous glance at the white powder which had made him look a little funny just there, yet he didn't seem to let himself to be bothered too much. Elsa figured he was just a better actor than she was.

"What I'm doing here, you ask?" Pitch repeated, the sly smile returning to his face. "Why, it was you who called me? Your fear – I haven't sensed a fear so absolute in more than a decade. How could I possibly miss it?"

Elsa turned away from him. His presence was making her feel nauseous.

Her leather boots were covered with ice when she lifted one of them out of the snow and made the first step since she'd started talking to the Man in the Moon. Behind her, she could hear Pitch snickering.

"Running away again, Snowflake? You can't hide from me. You will always have fear, just like you have always had. Do you really think you can get rid of me this easily? You wound me." The tone of his voice gave away that despite all the sarcasm he put into his words, he was dead serious. Elsa didn't doubt for one second he was telling the truth, and she hated it.

"Leave me alone", she mumbled, taking another step.

"You sound like Jack sometimes, you know that? Some time ago, he said the exact same words to me. No wonder he kissed you."

A growl came over Elsa's lips. It was bad enough that he compared her to this boy, Jack Frost, and even reminded her of the kiss. But it was even worse to know he was right.

Before she knew what she was doing, her hand was stretched out in Pitch's direction. A blast of ice and snow came from her fingertips, completely freezing one of the big trees.

"You need to be a little faster than that" Pitch mocked her from another direction. Elsa spun and shot another blast, but soon she heard the voice from yet another place. For a moment, the girl thought she felt Pitch very close to her, but the Master of Shadows didn't have that name for nothing.

"Show yourself", she growled, trying so hard to impress him. The laughter he let her hear for that was deep and strangely calm. She knew that she was scared, deep down, but some unknown force took over her body. Like in trance, she turned her palms to the sky and let out a loud scream. She couldn't catch Pitch if she only shot in one direction at a time. Her body seemed to know the answer before she did. Around her, massive walls of ice sprang from the ground. Translucent stairways grew like the plants Anna and her used to take care of when they were kids.

Big windows, with ice as glass, gave view to the scenery of a beautiful view from her place on the mountain, but Elsa was too consumed by the process, she didn't even realize what she was creating.

Finally, the task was done. Elsa fell over, landing on her knees, breathing hard. Never before had she done anything like it. A beautiful, icy-blue castle had come out of the ground, standing tall and proud on the snow-covered mountain. It was several stories high, but seemed so stable like Arendelle's best builders made it.

The Queen looked around, astonished. Completely speechless, she rested on her knees for some more seconds to catch her breath. From the corner of her eye, she noticed a movement. Turning her head, she watched as Pitch stepped out of his shadows again, completely unharmed. Elsa grunted.

"Well, well. Not bad, Snowflake", were the only words Pitch spoke for a while. His hands in his pockets, he walked around, inspecting every corner of the palace Elsa had raised from the ground.

She hated it when he called her Snowflake, but he scared her too much for her to protest.

Turning to her – who was still kneeling on the floor – a harsh smile played around Pitch's mouth, lacking the warmth every other smile always had.

The tip of his index finger brushed lightly over the wall of ice. Only now, Elsa realized how tiny black particles were enclosed in the palace's walls.

Pitch walked towards her, slowly, looking down at her with a look in his eye Elsa couldn't quite define.

"Look at what we can do", Pitch said, remembering a conversation he'd held some time ago with a boy who just happened to have the same white hair and powers over the ice like Elsa.

Some sort of triumph shone in his eyes when he crouched down next to her, holding out his grey, spidery hand for her to take, as if he actually wanted to help her to get up.

Motioning through the great hall they were sitting in, he gave her another one of his cold, loveless smiles.

"Just look at what we can do. What goes together better than cold and dark?"


End file.
